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Can't download synced bookmarks to Firefox on a new Windows 11 computer

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  • Siste svar av Mark

Mark
Mark
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I got a new Windows 11 Dell XPS laptop computer and installed the latest Firefox (v133) on it. On my old computer, it was supposedly syncing/saving the bookmarks in the Mozilla cloud or somewhere. However when I try "Import" on the bookmarks panel, it only offers to import Microsoft Edge bookmarks. When I follow the help docs on this forum, it says to use the hamburger menu to go to bookmarks and then to "Manage Bookmarks" which took me a while to find since it's at the very far bottom of the Bookmarks window, not near the three menu items at the top. Anyway, it brings up a window with more bookmark items but they all seem to deal with my current computer and installation of Firefox, which has only a very few default bookmarks. I do not see anything related to bookmarks synced with the cloud. I am logged into Mozilla on the new computer. I do not have an HTML backup file available, since I thought that the bookmarks would be backed up to the cloud and I could always get them there. Two questions:

  1. 1: Is it possible to get my old bookmarks from the cloud?
  1. 2: Is the bookmarks have not been exported to an HTML file, is it somehow able to get them from someplace on the C drive of my old computer? I think it should be possible since the bookmarks must be saved somewhere otherwise, how would it know what the bookmarks are for someone who never exported them to an HTML file? My old computer won't boot due to a power surge but I am able to connect it's hard drive to my new computer and see files on it.

Thanks, Mark

I got a new Windows 11 Dell XPS laptop computer and installed the latest Firefox (v133) on it. On my old computer, it was supposedly syncing/saving the bookmarks in the Mozilla cloud or somewhere. However when I try "Import" on the bookmarks panel, it only offers to import Microsoft Edge bookmarks. When I follow the help docs on this forum, it says to use the hamburger menu to go to bookmarks and then to "Manage Bookmarks" which took me a while to find since it's at the very far bottom of the Bookmarks window, not near the three menu items at the top. Anyway, it brings up a window with more bookmark items but they all seem to deal with my current computer and installation of Firefox, which has only a very few default bookmarks. I do not see anything related to bookmarks synced with the cloud. I am logged into Mozilla on the new computer. I do not have an HTML backup file available, since I thought that the bookmarks would be backed up to the cloud and I could always get them there. Two questions: # 1: Is it possible to get my ''old'' bookmarks from the cloud? #2: Is the bookmarks have not been exported to an HTML file, is it somehow able to get them from someplace on the C drive of my old computer? I think it should be possible since the bookmarks must be saved ''somewhere '' otherwise, how would it know what the bookmarks are for someone who never exported them to an HTML file? My old computer won't boot due to a power surge but I am able to connect it's hard drive to my new computer and see files on it. Thanks, Mark

Valgt løsning

Hi

Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.

It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

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Paul
Paul
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Valgt løsning

Hi

Thank you for your question about the Firefox Sync service.

It appears from your question, that you are using Firefox Sync as a back up service. This is not what Sync is designed to do. The Firefox Sync service takes a copy of the data you wish to include and transfers it to a second device (typically a mobile device such as a tablet or a telephone) running a copy of Firefox. The storage in between all attached devices is both temporary and fragile and is not stable enough to be (and is not designed as) a reliable backup service.

If you have a copy of your Firefox profile for desktop Firefox, you may be able to recover your bookmarks and other data. Please have a read of this article.

If you have a copy of your data on a mobile version of Firefox, please follow these instructions to connect it to Firefox Sync to copy your data.

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Mark
Mark Eieren av spørsmålet
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Thank you so much, Paul! This worked. I found what I needed (the saved bookmark path) in one of the links you gave. This is what I did: 1. Attached my internal SSD drive from my old, dead computer to another desktop machine, which had power and SATA connections for the old SSD drive, which my new laptop does not.

2. I attached my external hard drive to the other computer and started up File Explorer and changed the view settings to show hidden files.

3. I copied almost all of the "C:\Users\<your Windows login username>\AppData\" folder from the old SSD to the external hard drive. Some files didn't copy because their path was too long or for an "unspecified error", but it turns out I didn't need those. I just told it to skip files if an error popped up. So now I had all the files that I think I'd need.

4. I moved the external hard drive to my new laptop. It was now the D: drive.

5. On the new laptop's Firefox I did hamburger menu->Bookmarks->Manage Bookmarks->Import and backup-> Restore, and browsed to "D:\Users\<your Windows login username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\" on my external hard drive, and selected the most recent file in there. I told it to overwrite the existing (the few default) bookmarks in there with my restore file.

After that, the bookmarks instantly appeared in my Bookmarks panel. Yay!!!

I'm going to put a recurring appointment on my calendar to make periodic backups of my current bookmarks to an HTML file. Maybe that will simplify things in the future.

Now, if I could only get the bookmark folders to be yellow like they used to be. Regardless, the way Firefox handles bookmarks is way, way better than Chrome or Edge and is one of the main reasons I stick with Firefox.

Thanks again Paul. Mark

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